Category Filtering: 'ehang'
Good morning, everyone.
By now, everyone is aware of the tragedy that happened Sunday morning, only 50 miles northwest of this convention center.
I speak for all of us at the FAA when I say that we are saddened by this accident and the loss of so many lives, and our hearts go out to the family and friends of those onboard.
On Oct. 30, drone manufacturer and eVTOL developer EHang filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its $100M initial public offering (IPO) on the US Nasdaq stock exchange. The paperwork for the Guangzhou-based company noted that it had delivered 38 “passenger-grade” autonomous aerial vehicle (AAVs) to customers “for testing, training, and demonstration purposes and developed two command-and-control centers for smart city management.”
European views on how soon and how best electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft might create new transportation markets differ — in some cases strongly — with the vision being pushed by urban air mobility (UAM) promoters, such as Uber. At its Uber Elevate Summit in Washington in June, the ride-hailing company promised it was on track to launch air taxi demonstration flights with its partners in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 2020 and to begin actual commercial service in 2023.
Chinese drone maker EHang delivered the first batch of “passenger grade” EHang 216 autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) in June, followed by a second batch in October. The company says these aircraft have now reached customers in Asia, Europe and North America.
According to the eFlight Journal on July 2, Chinese drone maker EHang has delivered the first 10 of its two-seat Model 216 eVTOLs to a Chinese operator and eight more to deliver to undisclosed overseas clients, with additional deliveries in China coming. The EHang 216 is a derivative of the single-seat EHang 184 will operate with a special permit to fly under a specific operational risk assessment (SORA) trial rule by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) that allows the operator to carry passengers.
On April 4, the EHang Air Mobility Group, based in Guangzhou, China, and the Austrian FACC aviation company flew media representatives on demonstration flights in the two-seat EHang 216 eVTOL. The flights were conducted in the Generali Arena in Vienna, Austria. EHang is part of the Urban Air Mobility Project — established with FACC and 4GAMECHANGERS / ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4 — which is intended to be open to others interested in supporting the initiation and operation of eVTOL air taxis in Austria by 2020.
For many entrants in the race to develop electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the speculative air taxi market is the prize at the end of the finish line — one that could someday yield orders for thousands of aircraft to ferry millions of passengers around congested cities. However, with numerous regulatory and social barriers standing in the way of that market — on top of the very real technological challenges associated with building and flying eVTOL aircraft — this type of on-demand urban air mobility (UAM) could take many years to come to fruition.
On Jan. 23, the Airworthiness Department of Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) issued its “Guidance on UAV Airworthiness Certification based on Operational Risks,” aimed at establishing a risk-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) airworthiness management system by the end of 2019.
Guangzhou-based drone and eVTOL company EHang signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Lyon, France, in late November to establish its first European research center, which is expected to create about 50 jobs over the next three years. Ehang also entered into a strategic partnership with Austrian aerospace group FACC in November.
One of the reasons why members of the nascent helicopter community decided in early 1943 to establish the American Helicopter Society was because they didn’t feel that they were being taken seriously by the aviation establishment.
